HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUNNY!!!

You are now 13!!! Teenager Alert!!

She is beautiful and very sweet.

so are the cakes in front!

work of art!

We are going back to UK tomorrow!

A Happy New Year!!

This is first time in 14years to do new year celebration in Japan for me, and first time ever for Hunny and Viz! This is The proper celebration for new year to me, clean everywhere in the house to welcome good spirits and prepare food on new years eve.

And new year starts with greeting and announcements of new year's resolutions and children get their new year money. Then we pore eachother "Otoso" spiced sake drunk in celebration of the New year.

Otoso at the back, black beans, fish eggs and small dried fish cooked in a sauce at the front.

As our little Viz couldn`t wait to put his hands on Otoso, new year resolutions were skiped.

Happy new year, Viz!



"Osechi" New year foods in a three-tired box.
some fish, prawn, various root vegetables.Each foods have meaning to bring good luck.

In the afternoon,we went to the shrine for the first visits of the year.

It was quite busy, there was a long queue to the main shrine.

A little shrine on the side. There were few of them, each one is dedicated for different gods.

"Omikuji" a written fortune. After it was drown and read, it was tied on.

The place selling Omikuji and other good luck charms and decorations.

Our dinner for the evening.

The same thing from the morning plus roast beef and sashimi of various fish.





Hunny`s favorite sashimi..... cyu-toro which is quite fatty part of tuna.

ahhhh.... yum!









Viz found something taste extremely good!

ummmmmmm...... too yummy for words!

My dad took us to the fish wholesale market where he used to work.

The morning of markets starts early..... or these days it's 24hours work as they do auctions in even midnight.

We left home at 3 o'clock in Taxi as there are no trains running.

4 o'clock in the morning...... that's the clock says....

Inside of the market is full of styrofoam boxes.






I don`t know the name of this fish but not pretty,,,
Their faces are bit crocodilish??







A puffer, a globefish!
They have deadly poison in their guts, so only licensed people are allowed to dismantle.

and they got such strong jaws, you mustn't put your finger near it! they will bite your finger off!





And this is what we came for.

Tuna!

They get auctioned around 4 o'clock, so we needed to come here so early.




now the auction started!
They do use strange voice and language, and things go really speedy.

It didn`t take long at all to get sold all the Tuna which were in several lines.



This vehicle was used a lot in the market. It had a big round handle on top of round tank... which has an engine in it.

And there were also many bicycles and a scooters too. it`s quite big inside.

The guy was dismantling a big fish. tuna?

Other auction was on. There were only few women working there.

We saw fish were being transferred to the big tank from the truck.

We walked around greeting those people who knows my dad and saw lot more different fish.

But unfortunately,they had a stormy weather so they didn`t have fish as much as they normaly have.



Office opens around half past seven. so we had a little rest till people who my dad wanted to see come into the work.......

we got warmed up ....so~ sleepy.....



After the rest and meeting office people, we went to do some shopping.

There was lots of distributors there who just bought fish frm whole sale, and we were able to buy some from there.

Back at home.......

Viz's choice for Grandma..... A lobster still alive!






We bought some clams but we had this in a bag instead....

An octopus tentacles with big suckers on it.

It was about a meter length!




and this.....

sea cucumber..... I think it`s called so in English.

We call it "namako"
It has kind of crunchy texture with salty flavoure


We bought some more dried fish, sea urchin etc.


This is our meal for that night.

grilled lotous root, small clams steamed with Sake, boiled and sliced octopus, sushi with tuna,

boiled lobster, cooked pumpkin, sea urchine, burdoc root salad, miso soup.


Hunny trying some sea urchine.

She spat it out in next moment!